Chapter 1:
Fear was very slowly beginning to take hold of his heart, clenching its hold even tighter as he continues to wait for any word. Anything that will tell him that Obi-Wan, his son, will make it. Never knew, until now, the full dangers that fear alone could bestow upon any Jedi within a heart beat. To have seen someone you know about, even care about to have cried out and to see someone to be brought down to his knees like Qui-Gon has. Then surely many should understand what he is going through right now.
It had happened with out any warning, no traces of warning through the Force, that could have caused them all to react quicker. Would that have caused Obi-Wan less pain to suffer, so no one doesn't have to hear a strong young man like Obi-Wan Kenobi crying out in pain. The pain filled eyes was not all that was clouding Obi-Wan's stormy eyes, there was shock mixed in as well. Shock of seeing his own blood covering up his hand, blood which had come from his side. No one knows where, how or even why that is. No wound, no matter how grave, could have just magically appeared out of nowhere.
As far as Qui-Gon could understand. Obi-Wan wasn't injured during their last mission, which had twisted in to a sour and distasteful mission in the end. A child was killed in the middle of it all, a powerful and wealthy Baron's only child at that and everyone was quick to place the blame on Obi-Wan's shoulders. Only because the young apprentice was there when the incident had occurred, had seen the life of a child to slip a way.
Even Qui-Gon had been fooled to believe that his apprentice could be so negligent as to have an innocent child to be killed.
Obi-Wan is no murderer. His compassion for others is far too great to ignore and Obi-Wan would never of have murdered someone out of revenge. The boy follows the Code and Qui-Gon is yet to find an evil streak in Obi-Wan's veins.
The boy will, perhaps, become one of the greatest of all Jedi. Everyone in the Temple can see it, even the civilians outside of the Temple can see it to be true. Obi-Wan is very wise for someone as young as he, and his instincts have served them well in the past.
But why?
Why didn't Qui-Gon believe his own padawan?
Is it because of the child's true killer was someone from his past, someone everyone had believed to have died in a pool of acid. The killer had escaped of course. Qui-Gon had believed that the reason behind the young child's death was a message, a warning, which Qui-Gon had blatantly ignored. Ignoring the pain he was causing Obi-Wan in doing so.
Xanatos, Qui-Gon's former apprentice before Obi-Wan, had returned from the dead. Causing Qui-Gon to remember the life he had once shared with Xanatos, the painful memories have always been there. Just never thought that they would return with such force.
Five long years to establish a good working bond between himself and Obi-Wan, the boy whom Qui-Gon had fought so hard in the beginning not to train and yet here he is. Obi-Wan had managed to creep into his heart and had somehow chiselled away the cold ice blocking everyone access inside.
"Has there been any word on Obi-Wan's condition?"
"Would I be sitting here if I had, Mace?" Qui-Gon harshly throws Mace Windu a question instead of an answer.
Glancing away from the naked wall to look at Mace, seeing a slight frown creasing the Council Member's forehead and concern shining through Mace's dark eyes. It's nice to know that Qui-Gon doesn't have to go through with this alone.
"No you wouldn't be," Mace replies. "You would be sitting by your apprentice's side. Scaring the Healer's away."
Qui-Gon had to smirk at that one. It is not uncommon for a Master to become protective when their Padawans have been seriously injured or to be on the brink of death, but the difference is very noticeable when it comes to the Jinn/Kenobi team. They have gone through so much, more then most have gone through a lifetime, and to jump past the hurdle of Qui-Gon's former apprentice's shadow is/was no easy feat.
Just when Qui-Gon was about to say something to that last comment Mace had said – something within the Force had shifted. Almost as though it was confused, stuck even.
Throwing a quick glance in Mace's direction, who returns Qui-Gon's glance.
"What was that?" They both said in unison.
And at that a time a Healer walked up to them, her face grim with the news she was about to share.
Anakin felt like crawling up the stairs in disbelief of what he is seeing, hearing and feeling before him. Never knew that seeing something as magnificent as the Great Jedi Temple, standing in all of its former glory, enchanting all who glances in its wake. The suns rays were surrounding the spirals, like a halo.
But there is something else at work here. Something that is twisting Anakin's gut into a knot and then untwisting his gut again. The Force is telling him something, warning him even, but Anakin doesn't heed its warning. He was never one to listen to reasonable advice, so why should he listen now.
It wasn't just the Temple that is sending Anakin's mind haywire with thousands of questions, that may never be answered.
Taking a good long look at his reflection, within a fountain's pool. Never thought that he could see his old self grinning back at him. There is no helmet covering his severely scarred face, no respirator to aid him whenever he needs to breathe in the free air and all that Anakin sees now within the fountain pool is an eighteen year old boy. Just the way he was before the war, before he had fought a dreadful duel against Obi-Wan and before everything else that had turned Anakin's life upside down.
Though his clothes are not the usual shade of brown he usually wears, but a lighter brown. His padawan braid could be seen hanging down past his right ear and his old lightsaber is hanging on its hook.
Feeling the presence of his former Master near-by is what had finally caused Anakin to head for the Temple.
Not feeling completely prepared to face Obi-Wan again after all these years of separation.
It may not be Obi-Wan, whom Anakin may have to face again, after all is he not the one to have helped murder some of the Jedi within those four walls. The chance to look upon the faces, which have haunted his sleep for so long, of the ones he had robbed them of their lives is not something Anakin will be completely prepared for.
Will they recognise him?
Is this the will of the Force?
Too many questions, burning his mind, as he slowly walk up the stairs and into the Temple. Taking a note of no blaster or lightsaber marks, scarring the walls of the Temple.
Using the bond he has with Obi-Wan, hoping that it will aid him in the search of his former Master. The bond that they had shared has always been strong, perhaps even long after what had happened between them. Could it be true.
Could Obi-Wan still trust him after what had driven them apart in the first place?
Now why is Obi-Wan's calming presence coming from the Healer's ward? Has he been messing with gundarks again?
Tabitah Sahl, a Healer within the Jedi Temple, well known for her expertise within the Force and out side of the Force and her extensive knowledge of all things medical. She has seen many injuries that will make one gasp and run in the other direction, but the injured patient before her is even more mysterious. This wound appears to have been inflicted by some kind of sharp weapon, but as far as Tabitah can understand is the fact that the young man before him could never have been stabbed in the Council Chambers. That would have been impossible.
A stab wound to the stomach is easy to fix these days. That is not her only worry at the moment for her patient seems to be losing the will to live.
His Force signature is dimming also and for once in all of her medical experience, Tabitah is lost for words.
Knowing that one of her crèche friends is waiting patiently for some news that could help relieve the tension from his shoulders.
Looking ahead of her, as her soft brown eyes cast upon Qui-Gon Jinn and Master Windu, gossiping softly to each other and Tabitah is dreading the reaction she'll get out of Qui-Gon, once she has told him of Obi-Wan's condition.
He's not going to like it and neither will Windu for that matter.
"Master Windu, Jinn," Tabitah bows in the presence of one of the High Council members sitting across one of her oldest friends.
"How is he?" Qui-Gon asks of Tabitah.
"I am not going to lie to you Qui-Gon," Tabitah begins the hardest task of all healers, explaining a patients situation to a loved one doesn't always end well. "Padawan Kenobi injury is not as bad as it had first appeared to be. Stab wounds are easily treated this days because of the vastly improving technology in the medicine world but that is not of our main concern."
Tabitah pauses for moment to see how far her message has sinked in to the minds of the two Masters watching her and none of what she has said is showing any kind of affect on their faces, but in the eyes of Qui-Gon tells another story.
"Then what is of your main concern, Healer Sahl?" Master Windu breaks the silence.
"It appears as though young Kenobi is losing will the live for some reason and his once strong Force signature appears to dimming its glow," Tabitah explains as carefully as she could, "and we are all at loss as to why that is-" she would have loved to have said something more to that when they were interrupted by another presence.
A powerful presence, one that would expect from someone like Master Yoda but not a young man, who appears to be of the same age as young Kenobi. Tabitah knows nearly everyone in this building and she always remembers the names to put to each face she comes across, but this young man she does not know the name.
Dirty blonde hair cropped into the style of most Padawan learners, with his braid coloured with beads falling down behind his right ear. His boyish features morphing into a face that all women, or men, will drool over (perhaps give young Kenobi a break for once, he too is growing into a handsome young man) and his azure blue eyes is what had really caught Tabitah's eyes.
His eyes are yet to leave Qui-Gon's. It was almost as if he has seen a ghost or at least trying to wake up from a terrible dream.
"How is this possible?" The boys voice croaked with misuse, by the sounds of things and there was also a large trace of fear, anger and perhaps hatred mixed into that misused voice also.
"Possible it is if you know how to seek what has always been," another voice bumps into the equation and all four heads swivel to find Master Yoda now standing in the middle of the doorway, which leads into the room that Obi-Wan is now occupying.
"Master Yoda," the young strange man says in a whisper almost.
"Know you, I do not," Yoda's green eyes questioningly observes the handsome young stranger standing in the midst, diverting all of their attention a way from a patient suffering a mysterious wound.
"Where is Obi-Wan?" The young man hesitantly asks no one in particular and the concern for Obi-Wan is very clear in that young mans tone.
"Introduce yourself, you will?" Yoda asks the young man.
Tabitah notices the way the azure eyes dances across the room, a sense of mistrust is practically weeping from this young mans clothing and there is something dark about him also. Guess that is probably why nearly all four of them have gotten off the topic of Obi-Wan Kenobi's condition.
"I'm Anakin Skywalker," the young man replies in a smugly tone of voice, a wisp of a smirk could be seen from this distance and his azure eyes were sparkling like a sapphire stone in the sunlight. "Now I demand to see Obi-Wan?"
"Only Master Jinn can make that kind of demand," Master Windu tells this Skywalker boy in that authority tone of voice that no one likes to cross. "Or Master Yoda or myself."
"I have as much right to see Obi-Wan as you do," Anakin says to Windu. "He's my brother, or a father to me if that is what you would like to call it and I have waited for nine years to see him again. Only to find out that he has once again landed up in the Healer's Ward."
Tabitah gets the feeling that this young man always gets what he wants no matter how difficult.
"Anyway back to what I was saying about Obi-Wan's condition, whom I believe we all should really discuss instead of who has the right to see Kenobi," Tabitah hastily puts in, hoping to end the tension in this room, which is slowly building each minute that ticks by unnoticed.
It seems that to Tabitah that she was the only to have noticed Qui-Gon exhaling the air he must have been holding during the whole fiasco with the emergence of Anakin Skywalker and his demands to see Obi-Wan. Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that Anakin had described Obi-Wan being a father to him.
First Obi-Wan gets mysteriously wounded during a Council meeting and now someone claims to know Obi-Wan. Can the day not get any weirder, Tabitah says to herself.
To Be Continued
A/N: Sorry but I got to leave something for the next chapter don't I. Thanks by the way to all that have reviewed. This is AU remember so anything can happen in an AU fic. Hoped you had enjoyed the new twists and turns.